Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.
I knew coming into the World Race that community would be hard. I knew it would be a struggle to live in close quarters with 10 other women. I knew we would fight, get on each others nerves and drive each other crazy. That was no surprise. The surprising part was getting to the end of two weeks and realizing we haven’t been fighting. In fact we look like a pretty healthy community from the outside. I even honestly believed we may be getting this thing right. I thought wow whoever put this team together must know what they are doing. We are good.
We were good until we went to visit another team across the city. As soon I got there it hit me. We were missing something big time. Honestly, I got very jealous of the closeness I saw. This team had inside jokes and acted like sisters. I wanted that so much for our team. I was very jealous of their relationship with each other and it made me tear up a little. I had no idea how to get us there. How can we be like that? Are we too different? Are we just not as compatible as they are? I left there so happy to have seen my friends but discouraged and jealous of what they had.
“Jealously is the thief of Joy”
That’s what my amazing squad leader reminded me of when I came to her with my thoughts and feelings. It’s true and I was letting my jealously speak lies into my heart. Yes we could be like that, yes we could have a great relationship, yes we could go deeper! Yes we are compatible and can press in and become the type of community that I want and Christ desires. She asked me if we had really had any intentional fun together. Umm..well no. I thought back on all of our team times and yes they were productive, but no time to just chill, hangout and do something fun together.
The next day I brought my feelings to the team and they felt the same way. We decided to reserve adventure day (which happened to be two days from then) for our team to go out and have a good time together. We also had a team breakfast before church that morning. It was so GOOD! We laughed together and tried new things together. We went on a cable car up a beautiful mountain, hiked a little, hung out in hammocks and talked, ate at an awesome restaurant, and walked around the city. We pressed in and started to really get to know each other. We learned about some of the team’s fear of heights and my strange eating habits. We even have some inside jokes now! It was so great! I know we won’t become best friends over night but I believe this was a fantastic start! We are choosing to press in and buy into each other and all this experience has to offer.
WE CHOOSE NOT TO SETTLE FOR GOOD WHEN WE CAN HAVE GREAT!
We are slowly living up to our name..Radiant Rubies. I can’t wait to see where God takes us over the next few months. I don’t know where He is taking us but we commit to going there together as one! We are like-minded, we will be sympathetic, we will love each other, we will be compassionate, and humble!
I made a short video of our adventure! Enjoy!
